The Siren of Japan
by viper's fang
Summary: Himekoji Kaoruko was the most loved person in Japan. She had the looks, a gorgeous voice, and an unshatterable confidence. She had a lot of fans, but no lovers. But Kaoruko didn't mind until she started seeing a familiar face from her past.
1. Chapter 1

**No, Himekoji Kaoruko is not an OC of mine. She's actually from Season 0, episode 19, which was about a beauty pageant. For all of those who don't know, she was basically the whole cause for the popularity contest. It came down to Anzu, Miho, and her for the finalists. She sabotaged Anzu's performance, but the real clincher was when she knocked out Miho in the final decision. Yuugi found Miho, and figured out that Kaoruko was behind it. The rest you could figure out. Yuugi beat her in a shadow game and made her think that she was some ugly drone.**

**This story kind of pulls her back into her old personality as the idol of Japan. She's loved by everyone again, but she didn't have someone that _she_ herself loved. I was going to kind of turn this into a one-sided love story between Kaoruko and Yuugi. It was originally just going to be a one-shot, but now I'm going to turn it into a short story.**

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Himekoji Kaoruko was the siren of all of Japan. She could be seen on every street corner and ruled all of the men's hearts. She often did live appearances at concerts and only promoted the most popular things.

The red-haired woman herself seemed to symbolize beauty and perfection. From her wavy, dark red hair down to her blood-red stilletoes, Kaoruko oozed confidence. Just recently, she won a national pagent and signed off as the star in a new popular romance movie. Everything went her way, as always.

Everyone in Japan loved her. How could they not? The normal, lower, uglier people were nothing but sheep. They followed those more powerful than them. To them Kaoruko was a muse. Completely untouchable, a goddess, yet one that they couldn't resist trying to reach.

It was almost time to go on stage. Kaoruko smudged on a bit more makeup, just to be sure that any imperfection was covered. As she did, a horrible image of a zombie flashed in the mirror and Kaoruko's breath hitched. Her crimson-gloved hands clenched tightly on the edge of her vanity in a white-knuckled grip. Kaoruko forced her shimmering blue eyes shut and took a couple of calming breaths. That mummy wasn't her! She was the idol of Japan, an image of youth!

When she opened her eyes again, the haunting image was gone. Letting out a sigh of relief, Kaoruko prepared to go on stage. It has been like this for a while. Ever since that popularity contest in high school, in fact. She had won that stupid contest, but towards the very end, something happened and Kaoruko looked like a mummy. She was too shameful to show herself to others, and when the curtains lifted, Kaoruko humiliated herself by dumping water on her head. It was a disgrace!

The worst part was, Kaoruko didn't remember doing any of that. She was told later by her fan club. The only thing that she remembered was feeling so ugly that she was shamed to show her face to anyone.

"It's your time to sing, Kaoruko," her agent said, poking her dull head into the dressing room.

"I'll be along a moment," Kaoruko answered pertly. The agent frowned at the rude reply, but didn't say anything to go against Kaoruko. Nobody dared to speak against Kaoruko. Instead, the woman just spun on her heel and left the room.

Kaoruko sighed and got her feet. She managed to convince herself that the incident three years ago was a fluke. She was the most loved and beautiful person in Japan; there was no way that she would humiliate herself again. After all, image is everything.

She found her way to the stage. The open-air stage was dark, save for a spotlight in the center of the stage, waiting for her arrival. The full moon threw a white moonbeam onto the silent crowd. Even the slight breeze fell still. It was as if everything was paused, waiting for the moment that Kaoruko took her place and sung songs of spring and love and wonderful summer moments.

The only sound was the clicking of her heels on the wooden boards of the stage and the rustle of her dress as it flowed behind her like a wedding train. Suddenly, the sound was turned back on the moment that Kaoruko stepped into view. There was a collective cheer that rose up out of the crowd and spread. It echoed all around her. That cheer turned into a chant. They were chanting her name.

"Kao-ru-ko! Kao-ru-ko! Kao-ru-ko!" The sound was sweet, the most perfect thing that Kaoruko ever heard.

She put her scarlet lips up to the microphone and spoke, making the crowd cheer louder for a moment before quieting down. Kaoruko didn't mind. The only regret that Kaoruko had was that the cheer was too short for her liking.

"I thank you all so much for coming here!" she gushed. "You don't know how much it means to me to have you all as fans. It has been two years since I've become the most popular woman in all of Japan, but you guys are the real winners!" Kaoruko was lying through her pretty white teeth, of course. She didn't care about her fans at all, except as a measure for how popular she had become. "Where would I be without you? Certainly not here today, ready to sing you my newest single 'Sakura Petals on a Spring Breeze', right?"

This earned her a loud roar of approval from the crowd. The piano started to play, and Kaoruko sung, capturing everyone with her voice.

When the song came to an end, cries for an encore rose, but there was nothing else to perform. On her way to the limo, all of her male fans rushed forward for an autograph and Kaoruko acted gratified as she signed all of the things pushed at her, but she had already expected at least this much.

All of a sudden, Kaoruko thought she saw a flash of weird tri-colored hair. It was so familiar for some reason, but Kaoruko couldn't see the person anymore, so she just shrugged and slid gracefully into the white vehicle.


	2. Chapter 2

**This chapter is quite a bit shorter than my last one, but not much happens. For now, Yuugi and co. get the spotlight except for the end of the chapter. Thanks for the reviews, and I hope you continue to like this story! =)**

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"...I thought that the performance was good," Yuugi said kindly. Anzu and Miho wanted to go to the concert to see a lot of the dancers and singers perform, but they weren't anxious to see Himekoji Kaoruko, considering all of the things that Kaoruko had done to them in the school pageant a few years back.

"I'll say," Jounouchi said, jumping in. "Himekoji looked amazin' in that dress!"

"She'll still not better than Miho," Honda argued, stubbornly sticking to his crush on the oblivious purple-haired girl.

Anzu and Miho chose to ignore the argument between the two boys and kept walking. Yuugi tried to calm Jounouchi and Honda down, but he wasn't having much success with it.

"Oh, come on man! Can't ya see that Miho's not interested in a clean-up club member? And you have to admit that Kaoruko looked smokin'!"

"She's nothing in comparison to Miho. Miho is like a snowflake..."

"So, Anzu," Yuugi said loudly. "Aren't you going to participate in a dance competition next month?"

"Yeah, the winner gets a scholarship to all of the best dancing and entertainment schools in the world," Anzu answered, sounding hopeful. "I need to win. I can finally go study in America if I win this competition."

"That's great, Anzu! I'll be cheering for you!" Yuugi promised.

"We all will," Jounouchi broke in.

"I'm really excited about it," Anzu said. "There's supposed to be a professional dancer as one of the judges. I wonder who it'll be. I mean, there's Amelia Stowers, and Jason Rockford, and..."

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Himekoji Kaoruko slipped her high heels off and sat down gracefully on her spacious white leather couch. She clicked on her TV and looked for something good to watch. As she did, a commercial for a dancing competition flashed across the screen. It was the same competition that she was contracted to be a judge for in about a month. Thankfully, it ended before the filming of her movie, so there wasn't going to be a conflict in scheduling. It could be so tiring to be so popular, but Kaoruko didn't mind.

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**For the next chapter, I plan on doing a bit of a time skip so that it takes place right before the dancing competition starts.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello, a bit of a short chapter again, for now. I don't really know much about dance competitions, so I set it up kind of like American Idol, since that's the only talent-type show that I've ever watched. I never really watched Dancing With the Stars, but I'd imagine that it's kind of the same. Sorry if it isn't! Anyways, hope you like it either way.**

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Kaoruko groaned as she saw the long line of losers that were coming to embarrass themselves in front of her. Of course, she couldn't keep anyone who was better than her, either. She couldn't have any of her fans paying attention to some new pretty face, right?

"Contestant Number 001, come forward," Chris Almard said. He was another judge, famous for these types of competitions. He was going to be hard to manipulate. The rest of the judges should be easy to lead or bribe into saying whatever Kaoruko wanted them to say.

A skinny girl with long blonde hair stepped forward. "And what will you perform for us today?" Tabatha Filroy asked. She was a another of judge's panel, and a newbie to these types of things. It's been told that she likes expensive jewelry. Simple enough.

"I'm going to do a bit of ballet," the girl said, looking nervous to perform. Even if Kaoruko was going to judge fairly, a good performer never showed their nervousness. And if they were nervous enough to show the emotion on their face, they usually messed up.

Sure enough, in the middle of a twirl, the girl landed on her ankle wrong and twisted it. She had to be helped off the stage and was attended to by the medical team that was behind the stage.

The performances after her weren't much better. Some messed up, others just didn't know how to dance at all, still others were just...plain boring. There wasn't passion in any of their performances. Clearly, this was going to be an easy year for Kaoruko. She gave the dancers who didn't make mistakes praise, as if they were the most amazing thing she ever saw, and the other judges didn't say anything to disapprove, although Chris did shoot her a couple of sharp looks.

Around noon, there was one girl that stood out. Number 678, Anzu Masaki. The brown-haired girl danced to a sharp hip-hop American song. Her footwork was flawless, and her confidence on the stage was incredible. She was going to present Kaoruko with some serious competition.

Kaoruko grudgingly admitted to the girl's skill, but she thought about how she was going to disqualify Anzu before she became too much of a problem.

This scene seemed sort of...familiar. It was several long minutes after Anzu was sent off of the stage with heaps of praise that Kaoruko remembered who she was. Anzu was one of those snobby brats who thought she could compete with Kaoruko in that stupid school popularity contest. She didn't win, of course, but to think that Anzu was still so arrogant after all this time! Still, Anzu was still just a kid in high school. She didn't really know how cruel the adult world was. Well, Kaoruko was just going to have to teach her the ways of the real world, wasn't she?


End file.
